Strong belief: Just as the White Sox had no desire to move Bobby Jenks in order to complete a non-waiver trade deadline deal of great magnitude, Jenks' mere presence also kept the White Sox from adding a reliever where there was a little uncertainty. That theory reportedly applied to Tampa Bay's Danys Baez and Pittsburgh's Jose Mesa, with doubts on the White Sox's part as to whether they could handle a non-closer's sort of role.

There are few questions in regards to Jenks' 100-mph fastball and 86-mph off-speed stuff. He has produced a 4.15 earned run average over seven Major League games, striking out 13 in 8 2/3 innings, and has been used lately in tight situations. Jenks entered Saturday's game in the eighth inning, with his team leading by two, and retired Melvin Mora on a flyout to right before walking Miguel Tejada and being replaced by Damaso Marte.

The 24-year-old right-hander appreciates the confidence shown in him by the White Sox, and understands his role means pitching at any time for any length of time. "I showed them what I can go out and do," Jenks said. "I'm doing the things I need to do out there on the mound to have a little success and get used a lot more."

MIgrenade

07-31-2005, 11:10 PM

I think Jenks is better than Mesa these days, I don't know about Baez. You might be right in that Jenks has shown not to suck and has good stuff, so why give up top prospects or major leaguers for guys who really aren't much better than Jenks?

hose

07-31-2005, 11:15 PM

Jenks has great stuff but he still is unproven. I'm glad the Sox held onto him and see a potential closer in the making.

elrod

08-01-2005, 12:08 AM

Baez has sucked lately. I'm glad we stuck with Jenks. The only other reliever I would have liked was Eddie Guardado.

BridgePortNative

08-01-2005, 01:05 AM

Amazing how we got this guy from the trash heap, in the Rule 5 Draft thing, cost was only 20,000 to the Angels.......... i think the only reason he isn't on their team is because of rumors of bringing beer in the team buses. IDK if that should be a good excuse

batmanZoSo

08-01-2005, 01:10 AM

Amazing how we got this guy from the trash heap, in the Rule 5 Draft thing, cost was only 20,000 to the Angels.......... i think the only reason he isn't on their team is because of rumors of bringing beer in the team buses. IDK if that should be a good excuse

LMAO. Gee I can't see that....

He was born to play in Bridgeport. If he has success he'll win over a lot of fans here. I know it's very early in his career here, but he could be a cult hero on the southside and he seems very marketable. I could see him in some classic commercials. I'm glad we kept him and I hope he continues to develop into a good closer. He's fun to watch pitch with that heater and the breaking pitch. Mercy!

BridgePortNative

08-01-2005, 01:15 AM

LMAO. Gee I can't see that....

He was born to play in Bridgeport. If he has success he'll win over a lot of fans here. I know it's very early in his career here, but he could be a cult hero on the southside and he seems very marketable. I could see him in some classic commercials. I'm glad we kept him and I hope he continues to develop into a good closer. He's fun to watch pitch with that heater and the breaking pitch. Mercy!

Exactly, I remember the game againts the Red Sox and Bobby was pitching, people were chanting "BOBBY! BOBBY!" similar to the Paulie chant, he ended up striking out the side,

Optipessimism

08-01-2005, 03:41 AM

Exactly, I remember the game againts the Red Sox and Bobby was pitching, people were chanting "BOBBY! BOBBY!" similar to the Paulie chant, he ended up striking out the side,

I'm probably going to get torn up for this, but I find it easy to root for the fat kid. It's like when you were a kid and you'd see a fight between a skinny kid and some huge fat kid and the whole time you'd be looking at the skinny kid thinking, 'man, this kid has no chance.' So then you see the skinny kid take a couple of swings, but you know he's only fooling himself. Then the fat kid picks him up and throws him like seven feet in the air and everybody starts laughing because they knew it was going to happen sooner or later.

That's kind of how I feel about Bobby. When he stands on that mound with that 100mph fastball and that nasty curve, it just seems like the hitter has no chance. And because he's fat, you can tell that he is putting every ounce of himself into that fastball and there isn't a damn thing anyone can do about it. Bobby's going to take his lunch money and that's it. HE GAWN.

Also, entirely seperate from the above, I think a lot of the fans have heard his story. I know some of the posters here, myself included, saw that short documentary of his that was on ESPN. It's a good story if he comes up to the bigs after so much struggle and all of the sudden finds himself as a key component of a playoff roster.

**EDIT: I'd also like to see Adkins go back to Charlotte and get fat again too. If not, he needs to put on some muscle and work on a putting together a build like Politte, who just looks scary up there.

hose

08-01-2005, 06:09 AM

Amazing how we got this guy from the trash heap, in the Rule 5 Draft thing, cost was only 20,000 to the Angels.......... i think the only reason he isn't on their team is because of rumors of bringing beer in the team buses. IDK if that should be a good excuse